


Here is the repeated image of the lover destroyed

by dwellingondreams



Category: The Wayhaven Chronicles (Interactive Fiction)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blood and Violence, Broken Bones, Dark, Eye Trauma, F/M, Feral Behavior, Head Injury, Kidnapping, Nate Goes Feral (For a Good Cause), One Shot, Prompt Fill, Rescue Missions, Vampire Bites, Vampires, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:06:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27170821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dwellingondreams/pseuds/dwellingondreams
Summary: Then he sees her phone, lying under her low coffee table, screen cracked and darkened. Nate kneels down to pick it up, concerned- how did she drop it down there?- and then catches the scent on the wind. He cannot believe he did not smell it as soon as he stepped into the flat, but- but- he jumps up, her phone loose in his grip, heart rate accelerating, and stares at the opened window, the crooked chair beside it, as if someone knocked into it, the rumple in the floor rug. “Holly!” he calls, voice rising for the first time in alarm, tosses her broken phone onto the sofa, and in less than a few moments is inside her bedroom. Empty. The bathroom door is wide open. “Holly!” A terrible, rushing, sinking sensation. A crack in the hull, filling up with water, threatening to pull him under.(In which Murphy escapes custody, the Detective goes missing, and Nate goes a tad bit feral.)
Relationships: Female Detective/Nathaniel "Nate" Sewell
Comments: 16
Kudos: 49





	Here is the repeated image of the lover destroyed

She calls him while he’s shifting from foot to foot in the bakery ten minutes before closing, smiling apologetically at Haley as she hands him the heavy paper bag laden down with their orders- well, mostly Holly’s order, but he won’t pretend he’s totally innocent in this, having ordered a blueberry muffin, several seasonally appropriate maple sugar cookies, and a hot chocolate, among other things. 

His phone vibrates in the pocket of his leather jacket as he takes the bag into his arms, thanking Haley and making sure to contribute to the tip jar decorated with stickers, but he doesn’t have a hand spare to answer it, and so ignores the muffled ringtone- it’s some song Tina set up to always play when Holly calls- something about shaking all night long. Nate waits until he’s stepped outside into the crisp and cool autumn night, then sets the bag down on a nearby bench while he extricates his phone from his pocket, smiling slightly as a group of young teens on bikes pedal past on their way to the cinema, and a dog barks from a passing car ambling at the corner. 

But his phone has already stopped ringing and gone to voicemail, to his dismay. Nate hates that; half the time he accidentally deletes voicemails instead of successfully listening to them, which exasperates Agent Lin endlessly- well, that and the fact that he only remembers to check his email about twice a month unless Adam specifically reminds him. Nate can hardly keep track of all these different avenues of communication. He misses when the Agency just faxed things over, or sent down a memo from headquarters. 

But this voicemail isn’t from Rebecca, but her daughter, so Nate smiles to himself with more than just triumph when he presses ‘play’, awkwardly cradling the phone between his ear and shoulder as he takes a sip of his hot chocolate, blinking as the liquid sears its way down his throat and bubbles in his chest. 

“Hi Nate,” Holly says; he can hear the TV in the background, and faint music, and she sounds like she’s cooking, from the clatter he’s hearing. “Uh- sorry, almost hung up- I was just calling to say the food’s almost done, so hopefully you’re on your way back right now. Anyways, tell Haley I said hi if you see her, and don’t forget my cheese cake. Okay, bye, love you!” He hears her hang up, and then the voicemail ends. Nate double checks the bag to confirm that yes, Holly’s raspberry cheese cake was included, then pockets his phone again and continues on his way, enjoying the sight of the wind sending leaves scattering across the sidewalk and the street, crunching under his brisk footfall. 

He’s in a very good mood- Nate likes to think he is almost always in a good mood, but they closed a difficult case without any significant fuss a few days past, the weekend is wide open, and they’ve worked so hard lately that he thinks he and Holly (and the others, of course) deserve this pleasant break. There’s a text chain he can barely keep up with about going pumpkin picking on Sunday, and to his surprise it’s not just Farah he seems excited by the idea. Adam has almost indicated genuine enthusiasm, and Morgan’s barely rolled her eyes about it at all, even responding with an ‘okay’ instead of her customary dead silence. 

He could stick to the backstreets and just run home- it would only take a minute or two to reach Holly’s apartment, but he’s enjoying the evening air and the familiar sights and sounds of Wayhaven so much that he takes his time, not dawdling but not walking at the ‘breakneck’ pace Holly sometimes accuses him of. He wonders what’s she made for dinner. Holly made homemade dumplings with him for the first time last week, and though they were very, very good, what he enjoyed most was the feeling of her hands on his, guiding him to shape the dough, and the smell of her hair as she stood in front of him on a stepstool, which even then just brought her scalp up under his chin. 

Tina’s birthday is next week, and Holly’s talked a little about trying to bake a cake for it, since apparently the last time Holly attempted such a thing, it was a complete disaster and they went out for ice cream instead. Nate is already trying to make a list of things Tina might like as potential gifts; she is Holly’s best friend, and he loves Holly more than he has ever loved anyone, more than he ever thought he could, therefore he views TIna with a certain aura of enthused fondness he might not have otherwise, though she can be very entertaining when she’s not ruthlessly mocking their ‘lovesick’ ways. 

Nate doesn’t consider himself lovesick. Being with Holly isn’t like being overtaken by a disease. It’s like… it’s bracing, in its way, like a very cold or very hot shower first thing in the morning or late at night. A second wind he didn’t know he was looking forward to. Invigorating, not debilitating. He feels more alive around her than he has in… in a very long time. It’s not that he didn’t enjoy his life before her. He did. He felt fulfilled. But looking forward to her company everyday excites him, leaves him feeling strangely eager and boyish, even in their quieter moments or languid nights in bed. 

From the lot of her building he can see the lights in her flat blazing, sheer curtains fluttering in the wind. She always leaves as many windows open as possible, to ‘let air circulate’, she says, and because she doesn’t like to sleep with fans buzzing. Nate smiles up at the beacon of light, like a sailor of see watching the blazing lighthouse come into view on the shore, and enters the building. By now he could make his way up to her flat with his eyes closed. He can hear the faint chatter of the television through her thin door, but it sounds like she’s turned off her music. Nate unlocks it with the key she gave him back in August, which he keeps on a cord around his neck under his shirts, most days, and steps inside, brightening at the smell of food.

“I come bearing gifts!” he calls out, imitating her for once, instead of the other way around, then walks into the small galley kitchen, setting the bag down on the counter. She’s left the stove on, although she’s left the shrimp straining in the sink and the chicken is cooling on a platter. Nate switches it off, ever mindful of the gas bill, and comes back out of the kitchen, slipping off his shoes to put on the rack under her own by the door. “Holly? I didn’t forget your cheesecake!”

Her small television set is playing some fantasy series; he stares at the glow of the screen for a moment, distracted by a dragon- oh, no, wait, it’s a commercial for insurance- then looks around, wondering if she’s spilled something down her shirt and gone into her bedroom to change. Then he sees her phone, lying under her low coffee table, screen cracked and darkened. Nate kneels down to pick it up, concerned- how did she drop it down there?- and then catches the scent on the wind. He cannot believe he did not smell it as soon as he stepped into the flat, but- but- he jumps up, her phone loose in his grip, heart rate accelerating, and stares at the opened window, the crooked chair beside it, as if someone knocked into it, the rumple in the floor rug. “Holly!” he calls, voice rising for the first time in alarm, tosses her broken phone onto the sofa, and in less than a few moments is inside her bedroom. Empty. The bathroom door is wide open. “Holly!” A terrible, rushing, sinking sensation. A crack in the hull, filling up with water, threatening to pull him under.

He knows this scent. He does. He’s been around hundreds of vampires in the last few centuries, and their smells change over time, but he knows this one, and he knows it specifically because he can smell the sterile, medical taste of the Facility mingled with it. He can smell sweat, and desperation, and gunsmoke, although he doesn’t see or smell any significant traces of blood. Hers or his. 

Nate strides back into the living room, trembling all over, to his dismay. He has to remain calm. He has to remain calm. They can’t be far gone. He just talked to Holly. It wasn’t so long ago. She must have just finished cooking. It can’t have been very long, they must be close-

His phone begins to ring again, the generic beeping tone used for every other number but Holly’s. Nate scrambles to answer- if it is Agent Lin or Adam, they can immediately begin to coordinate a rescue- but it’s an unknown number. “Hello?” he says, unable to keep the strain from his voice, intending to hang up immediately if it’s another one of those telemarketers or scam callers. 

“Agent Sewell,” an all too familiar voice all but purrs. “You answered on the first ring, what a pleasant surprise.”

Nate nearly drops the phone, and feels his heart rate slow to a painful, deadening, thud, like the rhythmic beat of a drum. “Murphy. You took her.” You took her. He took her. It is a certainty, now, not just a strong possibility. Who’s phone is Murphy calling from? But if he could escape the Facility- Nate doesn’t want to consider the implications of that, what if he’s not the only one, what if it was a mass outbreak- he could certainly manage to swipe a phone off some unsuspecting human. 

“Oh, I don’t know if I like your tone,” Murphy says, idly. Nate strains to hear, hoping for any faint sounds that might be Holly, but all he hears is Murphy’s dry, almost hoarse tone- he must still be weak if he just escaped custody, he’s likely still pumped full of sedatives and paralytics, Nate assures himself, he’ll be hampered by that- unless he’s already feeding from her. “It sounds rather accusatory. But if you must know, yes, the Detective and I have been playing catch-up. After all, it’s been such a long time.”

Nate blinks and the world flickers a very wet and pulpy red for an instant, like mashed, fruit, like raspberries or cherries, Holly loves red foods- and then forces himself to say, in what he thinks is a restrained, even tone. “If you want to negotiate with the Agency, I think you know it is not in your best interests to harm her.”

“Harm her?” Murphy scoffs. “I don’t appreciate that insinuation, Agent. Why would I want to harm her? After all, she gave me such a gift the last time we were together. Do you really think I’d be so ungrateful?” His tone hardens. “So careless with what’s mine?”

Again, Holly’s light and airy living room suddenly seems saturated with red, dripping down the walls and pooling underfoot. Nate counts to three in silence, then says, “Whatever your demands are, the Agency has negotiators. We can work out something in your favor, Murphy, but you have to be reasonable, you mustn’t harm her-,”

“You know,” Murphy interrupts him. “It was almost sweet, really. After putting up what I’m sure she thought was a fight, she did scream for you towards the end. I suppose she must have thought you’d be close by. That you’d hear.” He sighs, like a disappointed teacher or doctor about to deliver some unfortunate news. “Would you like to hear her scream again? I’m sure she’d be happy to-,”

The cell phone explodes against his ear when he crushes it in a crunching of plastic and thin glass. Nate lowers his clenched hand from his face, the pieces falling onto Holly’s tiled flooring. Nate stands there a moment longer, teeth almost chattering as if he’d just been plunged into an icy ocean, then moves, vaulting out the open window and barely feeling the impact when he lands on the hood of a parked car some forty feet below, crushing the hood and setting off the pulsing whine of the alarm, before he vanishes into the night.

Holly always wanted a cabin on the lake, so she supposes it’s fitting that she wakes up in one, some cheap rental that hosts tourists who drive down from the city during the summer or long weekends, holding barbeques and fishing trips and hunts and bachelor parties. She wakes alone, wrists zip tied to the arms of a wooden chair in what must be the living room. There is no overhead lighting, just a dim lamp in the corner. She can hear the waves washing gently against the lakeshore outside, and the faint sound of cicadas, the long songs of the summer already set to fade away now that autumn is here. A fan is whirring somewhere behind her, an obnoxious noise that reminds her of a faulty air conditioner in the office of a professor she once assisted in uni. 

She feels alert and in control of all her muscles, so she assumes he didn’t sedate her, just knocked her out the old fashioned way, with a knock to the head. Her temple pounds and throbs, but her vision is clear, she doesn’t feel dizzy or sick to her stomach, and so she hopes she is not concussed. Her legs are not zip tied to the legs of the chair, but her arms are secured tightly enough that she cannot even brace her feet on the filthy floor and try to stand up with the chair, it’s impossible, she’s at a slight angle. 

She hears him before she sees him. Murphy does not look good, is her most astute observation of the evening. Eight months in a Facility holding cell, more or less paralyzed in permanent agony, she assumes, after they finished their interrogation, has not been good for him. There seems to be more grey in his hair than she recalls, though perhaps that’s just her imagination; can stress age vampires’ bodies, even if time cannot? His face is lined and weathered, cheeks sunken, eyes hollow and glossy in their sockets. He was lean before; now he is almost spindly, would be even more terrifying were he as tall as Nate- Nate-

Nate will find her, she thinks, and the rest of Unit Bravo. They tracked Murphy down once, they can do it again, and he doesn’t have any thralls at his disposal this time. He looks down at her with the critical air of a disgruntled supervisor examining the work of a lazy and irresponsible employee. He still projects a faint air of authority. She wonders if he ever was a doctor, when he was still human, before he murdered and stole his way into a new life, over and over again. She wonders if he was ever human at all. She thinks so. He may tamper down on it as much as possible, but she thinks in some sense, only someone who used to be an ordinary man could take this much pleasure in torturing and murdering and thieving. 

“Well,” he says, “you might like to know that I just had the most interesting chat with Agent Sewell, Detective.” 

Holly flicks her gaze up to look him directly in the face. She is just now realizing that two fingers on her left hand are broken, crumpled down against her palm, where the others are splayed out. If she has any other injuries, she just doesn’t feel them yet. The wave of pain seems to rock her a little; she feels as though she were drifting out to sea on this chair, intangible. Her dazed response irritates him, of course; he slaps her across the face, not as hard as he could have- she has no doubt that using his full strength he could break her nose and fracture her cheekbone with just one light hit, but hard enough to sting, sharply. 

“Detective,” he says, crossly, then crouches down, the way an adult might speak to a misbehaving child at the park, “I can’t say I’m impressed with your lack of focus. You know, you’re the talk of the town at the Agency. Following in your famous mother’s footsteps.”

Holly stares back at him, dully, then says, her tongue thick, “How did you escape, Ethan?” If that’s the name he continues to use, he must have some attachment to it. Provoking him is only going to make this more painful for her, or cause him to stalk off in a huff. She needs to keep him talking, and he loves little more than to hear himself monologue, she knows that much.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” he retorts, childishly, his dark eyes gleaming with spite. “Did you ever come in and look on at me, I wonder? We shared so many firsts, you know.” His teeth protract; Holly watches them with the glazed over irreverence of a tired little child at the aquarium, watching a shark swim by. She likes them in Nate’s mouth better, finds them almost charming in their jarring contrast to his very human face, his smiling lips and warm eyes. 

This time, when he feeds from her, it doesn’t hurt so much as it did the first, but that might just be because he bites down in the same spot on her neck, and because she isn’t struggling and squirming to escape his grip; she can’t, restrained like this. The worst part is not the pain, the horrific sensation of another human- he’s not human, she reminds herself- of another person suckling from a throbbing vein on her neck, but when he finally stops feeding, temporarily sated and breathless, and she can feel his breath fan out across the wound, and can feel the blood worming down the collar of her shirt. 

He straightens back up, wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand. Holly feels a little woozy, but is just relieved she didn’t faint. He could have fed for longer. He could have drained her. No. He needs her alive, she reminds herself. That’s the whole point. The instant he kills her, it’s over. No more amplification for his powers. Energy source depleted. Done. I want years of use out of you. Now she does feel sick, but she won’t let him see her retching and heaving. She presses her lips tightly together and tries to think of Nate, to calm herself.

“I’m sure he’s on his way,” Murphy says, as though he’s read her mind. Holly looks up at him again. Her blood is smeared across his chin; he is speaking in the slightly shaky, ecstatic tones of someone who’s finally reached a proper high after months of forced sobriety. His fingers are twitching like spiders at his sides and his pupils have dilated to black pinpricks. 

“They’ll all come,” Holly says, disheartened by how much effort it takes her, even to talk. She wonders if Murphy is now classified differently, since he’s escaped custody. If they’re permitted to use lethal force against him. She certainly would have liked to, but she didn’t make it to her gun safe before he’d caught up to her, driving her to the floor and muffling her screams with his hand as he straddled her, her cheek pressed flat against the tiles. Several months of combat training, down the drain when cornered on a night off, unarmed, unsuspecting in her flat. She’s not sure whether to be ashamed or simply proud she even got any hits in at all. She is only human, after all. At some point she’s sure her kicks and punches and scratches felt like a toddler struggling in vain to escape a parent’s firm grip. 

“Oh, I don’t think so,” he says. “You see, there’s a rather large dust-up going on at the moment at headquarters… something about a security failure? I’m sure Unit Bravo,” here his lip curls, “is rather preoccupied making sure their prisoners don’t escape to wreak havoc on the poor, unsuspecting human world.”

“Nate knows I’m missing.”

“You are a bit simple-minded when you’re in shock,” he says, with mock pity. “Yes. I made quite sure of that, didn’t I? I want him here, Detective. It will be just like old times.”

Holly feels a flare of anger at the thought of him trying to lure Nate anywhere. “You didn’t leave any wire out this time, did you?”

His lips twitch in a grim little smile, and then he crouches down again beside her seat, and lays a hand on her knee. She’s clothed, wearing leggings under an old school sweatshirt, her hair scraped back in a ponytail much messier than usual, and is only glad she hadn’t switched her contacts for her glasses yet, or they’d probably be broken by now. He squeezes, hard enough to make her tense in pain, and then lets his hand settle slightly higher on her leg, not her thigh but close enough. 

“I wonder,” he says, “what the nature of your relationship with Agent Sewell might be? I heard the most intriguing conversation, while I was outside your window.” 

The thought of him perched on her rickety fire escape, listening in, disturbs her. How many times has she chatted with Nate on it, or Farah, or even Tina when she first moved into her flat, listening to neighbors argue and the distant sounds of traffic. At least this time, no one else in town has been hurt. Just her. Just Nate. She swallows hard. 

“Your passing eavesdropper,” he squeezes her leg again, hard enough to bruise, trying to get her to make some noise of protest or fear, but she remains silent, “might even think the two of you were… well, together. I do wonder, is that against Agency protocol? Do they encourage the fraternization of vampires and human liaisons?” He moves a little closer, so his breath is warm in her ear. “Do they know you love him?”

Holly closes her eyes. He is repulsive, and she refuses to acknowledge his pathetic existence any further.

“That’s alright,” Murphy says, tutting to himself and moving away from her ear, though he keeps his hand clenched painfully on her leg. “I understand you have your modesty to think of, Detective. Or may I call you Holly, now? Surely we’ve reached that level of intimacy.” She can hear his sick smile. She doesn’t need to see it. “After all, part of me… has and always will be within you. And we’re going to be spending quite a lot of time together, from now on, after you watch me tear him to pieces. Perhaps I’ll be able to determine what exactly he ever found so… appealing in you. I confess I don’t quite see the allure, past your blood, of course.”

Holly opens her eyes, and is pleased to see he’s still close enough. She spits at him, and is happy when it lands in his open mouth.

He jerks away as if struck, letting go of her, and retching in disgust, then turns back to her, outraged. “You,” Murphy growls, “are being very insolent tonight. I think when your beloved Nathaniel gets here, we might have to begin with a small lesson in obedience, so we all start off on the right foot, this time-”

The cicadas outside go silent, all at once. 

Holly feels a prickling along the back of her neck, hairs rising to attention, and studies Murphy’s momentarily slackened expression instead with great interest.

There is a deafening crash and a great rush of cold air, and after a moment Holly realizes it’s because the door is no longer on the hinges. Her chair topples over in the scuffle of movement, but catches on the edge of a wrought iron side table. One of her zip-tied wrists is close enough for her to saw the tough plastic against a jagged corner. She grits her teeth and focuses on that, ignoring the screams and snarls and the rising smell of coppery blood in the enclosed space. When she gets one wrist free, she jumps to her feet and is able to sever the second tie with greater speed, then ducks as something crashes to the wall above her head, plunging the room into darkness. The lamp.

She’s confused at first; Nate is alone, with no back-up, but seems to be holding his own against Murphy, despite the boost her blood must have given him. Is it because Murphy was already so exhausted and weakened to begin with, having not fed in months and thus no match for another vampire, even with the amplification from feeding on her? Is it because it’s been so long since he had her blood in his system and it’s taking longer to take effect? Murphy goes sprawling onto the floor, hands squeezing ineffectively at Nate’s neck, and Holly watches almost curiously, picks up a discarded fireplace poker, as Nate takes Murphy’s head between two bloodied hands, and simply… snaps it violently to the one side. There’s a god-awful cracking noise, and Murphy stills. 

Nate stays on top of him, breathing haggardly, hands still in position. Destroy the brain, Holly thinks, you have to destroy the brain before he recovers, and trudges forward, iron-tipped poker in her shaking hands. When Nate looks up at her, for a few moments she does not recognize his face, lathered in blood and dust from the floor, and his eyes, gleaming with animal brightness in the dark, do not seem to recognize her either. There is nothing human about him. She thinks despite her fear and exhaustion and pain- her fingers, what if they can’t fix them, what if they’re too badly crushed and have to be amputated- she has never loved him more. 

Murphy twitches. 

“Hold him,” Holly murmurs, unsurprised by the surge of sheer rage flowing up with through her veins.

Nate nods, gaze transfixed on her as though she were a religious icon nailed to a wall. 

Ethan’s eyes snap open, and Holly sinks the poker through one with her all her weight. The screaming, she thinks, is not so bad when your ears are ringing like this. 

Afterwards, she sits on the ramshackle front porch on a creaky wooden swing, wrapped in Nate’s jacket. He is still coming down from the adrenaline rush and the hormone flood, she assumes, and shivers despite her wrapping herself around him like a second skin, all but in his lap. She can hear an approaching engine in the distance; Adam must be gunning it for once. That brings a small smile to her face. Her fingers are splinted with some scraps of cloth from Murphy’s shirt and her hair tie. Waste not, want not. 

“I’m sorry,” Nate says, periodically, in between chattering teeth. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, sweetheart, Holly, I- I love you, I’m so sorry, I should have been there-,”

“I should have been more careful,” Holly murmurs, sleepy now. “My mum always scolds me about leaving windows open.”

“A locked window wouldn’t have stopped him.”

“I know.” She buries her face in between his arm and his chest, breathing in the scent of him. “I’m okay now, though. And I love you too.”

He strokes her hair wonderingly. “You’re incredible.”

“Nate, you single handedly took down a vampire tripped up on my blood mutagen,” she says into his shirt. It’s stiff with blood stains but she doesn’t mind, so long as they’re not his. 

“I don’t know what… I haven’t been like that in a long time.” He sounds self-reproaching. “I acted like an animal.”

“You saved me.” 

“You saved yourself,” he says. “You would have no matter when I got here. Just like you did the last time. And this time-,”

“This time, I ended it,” she says, then looks up at him, her chin against his chest. “Do you think we’ll get written up for it?”

“Yes,” he says, ruefully. “There will be loads of paperwork. But mostly on my end. You were being held captive. I should have waited for backup-,”

“Oh, well, so long as it’s on your end,” she sighs, yawning, and feels him chuckle incredulously, then wraps his arms ever tighter around her as the headlights wash over them.

**Author's Note:**

> This was prompted by an ask game on my [tumblr](https://dwellordream.tumblr.com/) where someone gave me a title to write a fic based off of. This title was taken from the Richard Siken poem, "Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out." I am always open to prompts for The Wayhaven Chronicles or asks about my detective Holly!
> 
> I know canon states Murphy is a 'natural' vampire and was never a human, but Holly has her own headcanons.
> 
> The song Tina put for Holly's ringtone on Nate's phone is "You Shook Me All Night Long" by AC/DC, of course.


End file.
